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It's a wonderful site
The new site for It's a Wonderful World is up and running, and it really does suit the game's name. While the site is all in Japanese (and in a crazy font as well), there's still information that can be gleaned about Neku and Shiki's efforts to win Death's game from the site, and there's a lengthy trailer that shows off a lot of gameplay footage. We could tell you where it is, but that takes the fun out of clicking all the buttons and waiting for things to load!
Valhalla Knights English website opens
Valhalla Knights was one of the best games at Tokyo Game Show this year, and although it's coming to the US in the future, details have been very scarce. The official US website for this RPG opened a few days ago, and gives a few tidbits on the game's story and characters. With the "Trailer" and "System" sections of the site currently unavailable, it seems like we'll have more to report on in the coming weeks.
Lumines website updates, showcases more music videos
The Lumines II website has entered Phase II. In this stage, it will develop chrysalis around its body, to protect itself during metamorphosis. It will also showcase music videos in the new Video Hub section. Artists you can preview include the Black Eyed Peas, Fatboy Slim, Beck, The Go! Team, The Chemical Brothers, and more.Lumines II flutters to store shelves on November 7th.
Mac Hints & Tips seeking donations to continue
Mac Hints & Tips is a killer site that catalogs (of all things) over 6,000 hints, tips, workarounds and other handy pieces of Mac OS X trickery. Compiled from Mac user groups, Apple websites and various other published and unpublished sources around the globe, this highly bookmarkable (and subscribeable) resource is run by one mere mortal by the name of Paul Taylor, who is seeking donations and subscriptions to keep the site and monthly PDF truckin'. Paul currently allows users to sign up for a yearly membership to gain access to the entire database of tips, searchable by keyword or application name, and he also accepts good ol' fashioned donations (though we've all seen how well those go), but he's trying to get the word out to see if the community can toss a few more dollars into the bucket o' hosting bills. To see whether Mac Hints & Tips could be worth your time and a donation or a membership, Paul keeps archives of the past three months available on the main page (in both HTML and PDF), in addition to the current issue.Check out Mac Hints & Tips, as I know I've found it to be an invaluable resource over the year or so I've been a reader, and it would be great to see such a killer resource get credit where it is most certainly due.
Ubisoft getting us ready for Red Steel
If you haven't been to the Red Steel site lately -- hell, even if you have! -- get over there and check out the updates. If the site is any indication of the quality of the finished game, we're sold. Times ten. From the music to the sound effects, down to the new feature of the Wiimote and aiming reticle, everything on the revamped site is pitch perfect. And don't forget to train with the sensei. It's always a good time to be a disgrace to the world of martial arts. That was a compliment ... right?
insideapple.apple.com?
The promotional email for the .Mac webmail refresh that went out over the weekend might have been a bit more revealing than we originally thought. Reader Harry noticed the address Apple used to send it was a bit different than the standard 'noreply@apple.com' (and honestly, I'm signed up for so much promo stuff these days I don't pay attention to who it's from with stuff like this anymore). The email was sent from an inside.apple.com domain, and following it redirects you to an apple.com/chatterbox 'we'll be back soon!' maintenance page - not the typical 'Looking for something at Apple?' page.Some googling revealed that others have seen this /chatterbox/ link used before, especially with images that are linked in newsletters, so this might be nothing more than some internal system for site and/or email and newsletter management. The 'we'll be back soon' bit simply makes it a little more interesting, as that sounds like it could actually be something public. In all likelihood it's nothing, and you can simply move along.
Apple.com 14th most visited site in US
MacNN found a survey from comScore Media Metrix for the month of August which ranked apple.com as the 14th most visited site in the U.S. with 31.5 million unique visitors. On the top of the list is Yahoo! with more than 131.3 million visitors, while Dell surprisingly leapt from 47 to 35, though MacNN notes that is largely due to the battery recall. YouTube, surprisingly, rose to the #32 spot with 19.1 million visitors in August - I always figured they were closing in on MySpace somewhere near the top of the hill.MacNN has more details of other properties and observations made from the survey, so take a gander if you have an interest in web and marketing trends.
CPSC and Apple get recall battery lists synced
We've noticed around the web, and also received a number of reports from you observant readers, that the list of recalled batteries didn't quite match up between the CPSC (U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) and Apple. Understandably, quite a bit of confusion was building over this, but fortunately, InsanelyMac News is reporting that the CPSC has updated their list to match Apple's, so everyone should be on the same page now.Also, we and others have been linking to various battery recall pages, missing the correct page for this most recent recall and causing even more trouble. This is the proper link for the most recently announced 1.8 million battery recall page, so we hope this helps clear things up.
Apple adds Nike+ section to iPod Support site
Apple must have heard our jab at their one-line Nike+ Sport Kit support document yesterday and decided to whip up a full-blown Nike+ support section of their much-loved iPod Support site. Delusions of grandeur aside, the support section offers the typical troubleshooting and 'How do I...' sections, along with a video tutorial detailing how to run how to get on your feet with using this slick new kit to enhance your run. It also includes a link to Apple's new Nike + iPod Sport Kit discussions sub-category which lives under their iPod nano forum. While these should be handy new resources for all sorts of internet-related arguments over Nike and why 5G iPods didn't make the cut, just remember to still get out on your feet with your shiny new running kit, as we're pretty sure Apple Stores won't accept "I just never got around to it" as a return excuse.
All your workouts are belong to Nikeplus
We're not sure how a one-sentence support document made it into Apple's support knowledgebase, but this strange doc somehow snuck past the velvet rope. It simply states: "There is no way to remove workout data from the nikeplus website", with a 'stay tuned for more info' bit at the end to finish off what is probably the shortest support document we have ever seen. Getting to the topic, however: it seems just a bit strange that there is no way to remove workout information from this supposedly revolutionary new service/iPod accessory. It's not like we're suddenly terrified about Nike's trampling of user privacy, but we wouldn't be surprised if a few tin foil hat fashion aficionados raised at least some sort of a flag over this.
Apple logo appears on PlayStation 3 site
So if you hadn't already heard, when you hit the Sony PlayStation 3 home page you're greeted with the usual requisite promo animation... and a momentary flash of the Apple logo (highlighted above). Seriously. Go check it out if you don't believe us. So, what's the deal? Well, our first inclination would be that it's either a mistake, some misplaced watermark, or the designer who put this thing up was probably about to get fired so s/he decided to have a little fun. Trust us though, we definitely would put it past Sony to be all sly and leave us some clue about a possible Apple video game partnership -- that just ain't happening at this point. We'll let you know as we learn more, but we doubt there's any current cause for alarm; especially since our videogame lovin' sister site Joystiq gave Sony's PR peeps a call, and they were as surprised to discover this as we were.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]Update: So from the sound of it Occam's razor strikes again. Looks like that logo flashes when you author using a trial version of Apple's Shake. So basically from what we can ascertain, Sony (or its ad agency) is too cheap to buy their people the full version of Shake, which goes for $500 list on Apple's site. Tisk, tisk!
Nintendo's DS section gets facelift
Nintendo has gone ahead and tossed a fresh coat of paint on the DS section of their website to coincide with the release of the DS Lite this Sunday. The day draws near, and even though some of you folk were able to capitalize on the ignorance of retail employees around the country, there are still a few of us living in the dark and waiting for the Lite. So do we think this design is better than the previous one?
Over 2000 Universal apps available
Apple has told Macworld UK that there are now over 2000 applications on its Universal Applications guide (there were 2,006 as of last night). More and more developers are making the leap to Universal applications and that makes Intel Mac users (like myself) a happy lot.So, what non-Universal applications are you chomping at the bit for (other than the obvious Photoshop and Office)?
iComment 4.1 adds comments, trackbacks, webstats to iWeb sites
iComment, as we've mentioned before, allows you to add trackbacks and detailed webstats to iWeb sites, and even comment systems to iWeb sites hosted somewhere besides .Mac. Implementing some of these features can be a bit clunky, as you have to sign up for external services to help drive some of them, however, if you just gotta have comments and webstats the latest version of iComment (4.1) is probably the best way to get the job done.A demo is available, and a license will cost a mere $9.95.
iTMS does storefront customization for radio websites
Two hip-hop radio stations, Power 106 in LA and HOT 97 in NYC, have signed on the dotted line with the iTMS to offer an integrated, customized version of the store right in their own websites. The radio stations can design the store any way they see fit, and feature any artists, recent releases and playlists they want. From some quick browsing, I was able to find the iTMS integration at HOT 97's site, but not at Power 106's.hypebot, the blog where we found this, was quick to point out the vast potential this kind of partnership with the iTMS has for any kind of niche markets, businesses and organizations you can think of: "From skateboard sites selling radical tunes to a museum's site selling period music that matches their exhibitions, this could be a very exciting development for niche and indie music marketers". Indeed, this is a great example of that iPod expansion post Scott had yesterday; it sounds like Apple has plenty of tricks up their sleeve for the iPod and iTMS.
iWeb 1.1 can handle multiple site databases
I was pretty darn happy with iWeb's update the other day, and good news of feature enhancements is still cropping up. Comments on my review of iWeb's new features pointed out such handy additions as a pop-up calendar when clicking on a blog post's date - great for adjusting its schedule. There are also six new themes that add some much appreciated diversity to iWeb's style.Then today I noticed this Apple Support document that details iWeb 1.1's ability to handle more than one website/database file. Now, you can create multiple database files and work on them separately. In fact, you can keep these files anywhere you want to; not just in your Application Support folder.Check out the Apple Support document for details on how to create a second iWeb database and how to handle working with multiple sites. There are a couple of minor gotcha's, but overall, this should be good news for anyone who wants to use iWeb to create and manage multiple, completely separate websites (publishing to non-.Mac locations, of course).
Mario site is updated yet again
During all the chaos that was E3, we totally neglected to check the New Super Mario Bros. site for updates. That's where trusty reader Jeremy swooped in, wet fish firmly gripped in hand, and waved the large tuna directly into our collective faces screaming "post it!" Not one to ever turn down a crazed madman fan, we happily report that the site has received a major overhaul, but if you're too busy actually playing the game to check it out, we'll understand and suffer our fate as best we can. [Thanks Jeremy Hall!]
Pimp your Camino
Safari isn't the only browser that can pimp it these days, as it looks like Camino has its own custom parts shop now. Pimp My Camino (started by John Hicks; he who set up Pimp my Safari) keeps track of the plugins, addons, haxies and scripts (and more!) for Mozilla's fantastic Camino browser.I don't know how long Pimp My Camino has been around, but they already have a whole slew of stuff like CamiScript (applescripts for saving sessions, grabbing site feed URLs, etc.) and CamiTools (a feature-packed pref pane), ready and ripe for you to blow an entire afternoon tinkering with.
iPod homage seen from space
Sometimes even his Steveness is guilty of having too much time on his hands. Apparently, Mr. Jobs won an abandoned mineral mine in Australia in a game of poker (or so the digg post says). So what does Steve do with the land? Why, construct the world's largest homage to the iPod, of course! The site can be seen from space (Google Maps link) and still looks to be a work in progress - but wow. I wonder if this is Apple's attempt at putting little white music players in the hands of little green men.
Getting started with Folder Actions
I'm finding myself spending more and more time at Apple.com/pro, as there are some truly useful tips for getting things done in OS X. Take this tip for example, that C.K. just sent my way: Adding Automation Through Folder Actions. Y'know those Enable/Configure Folder Actions options that show up any time you right-click (ctrl-click) a folder? Well, this tutorial will help explain what those are about by getting you started with setting up a simple action that notifies you when a file has been placed in a folder. Handy for a workplace environment where coworkers are placing items in your shared Drop Box. If I remember right, you can also attach applescripts and even Automator Actions you create or download as folder actions as well, which can really open up the doors for simple folder-based automation. Check out the brief tutorial to get your feet wet with the (geeky) goodness of automating OS X.
